Also on Friday, in Georgia, a 20-year-old McDonald’s employee was arrested and charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct after serving a police officer an overly-salted hamburger which he said made him ill.

Like Mr. Nifong, she spent Friday night in jail; though unlike Mr. Nifong, Kendra Bull isn’t off the hook with the criminal justice system.

Ms. Bull admits that she accidentally spilled salt on the batch of chopped meat that was used to make the hamburger (Bull ate a hamburger from that same batch without consequence), and that she told her supervisor about the spill right after it happened. A co-worker then tried to remove the excess salt from the meat.

What puzzles me about all this is… Why is Ms. Bull being held responsible for this at all? McDonalds staff are, for the most part, either students or fairly unskilled workers, earning minimum wage. They’re neither trained or paid enough to make judgment calls. Once she told her supervisor about the over-salted meat, and presumably her supervisor told her to use it, it was no longer her responsibility.